Many businesses use interactive voice response (IVR) systems to automatically respond to customer inquiries. For example, a customer can make a telephone call to the IVR system of a business and establish a connection via a public switched telephone network or a cellular telephone network. Once the connection is made, the customer can interact with the IVR system to access desired information such as account balance or to conduct transactions such as transfer between accounts. The caller typically responds to the voice menus of the IVR system by pressing the keypad on his telephone set. Very often such telephone calls are made using the toll-free number associated with the business and the cost of the call is paid by the business.
Consider a user that uses the cell telephone for accessing services. Some of the most commonly used services are: banking; insurance (e.g., auto, home and health); directory assistance (e.g., 411, KIOSK, etc.); travel reservations and enquiry; general utility services (e.g., cell telephone, land line billing, electricity, gas, etc.); and driving directions.
For each of the above-described services, the user has a different toll free number to access each respective service. Typically, the user calls each service at some frequent interval (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly etc), conducts business, and disconnects the call.
In every case, the call placed by the user goes through a carrier (e.g., AT&T (a registered trademark of AT&T Intellectual Property in the United States, other countries, or both)) and into the data center of the service provider from where an IVR application is executed. The user has to physically disconnect the service transaction before making a new service transaction with another vendor. There is no data sharing between the vendors.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.